The lovable hater behind ‘People I Want to Punch in the Throat’

I’m gonna be honest here kids. I check my blog stats obsessively and I know when you like a post… and when one’s as popular as a Baby Ruth floating in the pool.

My book review posts are not getting as much love as I’d like.

But stick with me on this one!

I need to draw your attention to a hilarious memoir I reviewed this week called People I Want to Punch in the Throat. It’s written by a fellow blogger who loves to point a figurative finger at overachieving, annoying people– particularly maddeningly doting know-it-all parents– and call them out on their crap.

Not only will you LOL, you may stand up and cheer when she eviscerates the mom who tries oh so subtly to completely exclude her from a toddler playgroup…or those who are certain their child is a prodigy and/or headed for the Olympics.

Here’s a taste….

Mann needs only a few sharp details to accurately sum up distinct personalities. There are the judgmental, designer-sunglasses-wearing “Dolce moms,” the self-interested garage-sale-trolling jerks who hope you won’t break a big bill she affectionately calls “$50 people” and the freaky, pill-popping moms known as “Superusers.”

She loves to pick on extreme parents, who spoil and overschedule their kids. Stories about catty, cliquey moms — similar to the evil sisterhoods in movies like “Heathers” and “Mean Girls” — zero in on complicated female relationships.

Mann deftly uses humor to underscore how intense and humbling mothering can be, which will strike a chord with parents who feel less than perfect.

“Now the Mommy Wars are all about who can out-mom their neighbor. The judging is not about who spends the most time with her kid … or who has the most important job; it’s been ratcheted up to who can breast-feed the longest and in the most unusual places,” Mann writes.